You can't be serious
by randomunionjack
Summary: One Shot. What might have happened after Major Mason saved Carter and Rosie. Would he really have let his daughter's actions slide?


**A/N: Just a short one shot I couldn't get out of my head.  
><strong>**This is set right after Major Mason captured General Kane and he and Carter have their little moment. I just wondered if the ending could have been a bit different, especially regarding the fact that Major Mason never bothered to give Carter a real lecture about everything. So just imagine the film scene where Carter and her dad hug each other. **

Just as Carter pulled away her dad smiled a bit evilly and said: "Oh and don't get your hopes up. You're still not of the hook, pal. There will be some kind of consequence." With that Major Mason went towards the director to discuss Rosie's situation, leaving his now very anxious feeling daughter behind. Seeing that the father-daughter-moment had ended Rosie started to approach Carter. "So, is everything good again between you and Major Mason?" Carter shrugged, trying to play it cool, but her voice gave her uneasy feeling away when she replied. "Not sure. I think I've still got quite the lecture ahead of me!"

The next morning Rosie and Carter came into the Mason's kitchen together where Major Mason was, in honour of Rosie, awaiting the two girls with a full on pancakes breakfast. Somehow he had pulled some strings yesterday and convinced the director to let Rosie stay in Louisiana for one more day. Supposedly the PPP needed to clear Costa Luna for Rosie's return but Carter didn't believe that for one second. The tomboy knew her dad was making it possible for her and her new best friend to spend one last night together since no one knew when they were going to see each other again. Carter was really grateful that her dad did that but when she caught the look on her dad's face she knew that she wouldn't be feeling that grateful after he was done with her. The only hope Carter had was that he might wait until Rosie was gone, so the princess wouldn't have to witness her dad yelling at her. On the other hand Rosie always had a somehow calming and soothing effect on Carter's dad, so maybe she should better stay. Either way Carter wasn't very keen to talk about those consequences with her dad.

'Maybe he calmed down by now and doesn't care anymore that I pretty much planned to hand myself over to Kane or that I nearly got Rosie kidnapped.' Carter thought as she and Rosie seated themselves at the table, with both of them adding intense amounts of syrup on the pancakes. Just then Major Mason spoke up. "Carter, we need to talk." And there went her hope of him having forgotten about last nights 'consequences' threat. "Oh Lord" Carter whispered loud enough so that she could be sure that her dad heard her. She waited for the usual response to her expression, a joke along the lines of "Well thank you, but I also go by dad!". But when her dad didn't even react to her line Carter realized just in how much trouble she was really in.

"Do you even understand what happened yesterday?" her dad already started. "You put yourself and Rosie into extreme danger. Not just by alerting Mr. Elegante, who luckily still is loyal to the queen and her family. But what if he hadn't been loyal? He could have alerted Kane and destroyed that whole plan of yours, which by the way was unbelievably reckless. You had no idea if I would come and save you. You and Rosie could have both been gone for good!"

"But you were there, just like I hoped and kinda knew that you would!"

"But hope is not good enough!" Major Mason practically shouted by then which made the two girls jump. Carter had never seen her dad this mad. "You hoped for me to come and save you but you weren't sure and when you put yourself into this kind of danger you have to be sure. Hope can make everything a lot worse, at least in this line of work. And lastly did you not just put both of you girls in to danger; you also went behind my back by doing so. You know I do _not_ like that Carter! You could have just come to me and we would have found a solution, without getting Rosie nearly thrown into jail by an evil dictator. I trusted you to work with me when I brought Rosie here and going behind my back, working out a plan and getting into an unbelievably dangerous situation does not count as working with me and therefore does not work in you favour."

Throughout the lecture Carter became smaller and smaller as her dad got his anger out of his system. But now as it looked like the yelling was over, Carter found the courage to argue. She wasn't one to go down without a fight. "But dad! I just wanted to help Rosie. I didn't know what else to do. You would have never let me do anything like that and I called Mr. Elegante as soon as Rosie told me everything. You would have changed the whole thing and I just didn't know what else to do. I know it was reckless but I only wanted to help!" The words came out of Carter's mouth faster and faster whilst she desperately tried to explain her side of the story. But as soon as she stopped talking to catch her breath her dad stopped her borderline rant. This time he was calmer but in a way sincerer. "I know that you wanted to help but that still does not excuse your actions." Carter knew that this could only mean one thing. The discussion and yelling part of the lecture was over which meant … "There will be consequences for your actions. You will clean the bait shop inside and outside once a week for two months!" Carter's mouth fell open at this. Her dad could not be serious! "You can't be serious dad! That is so not fair!" "I don't exactly care whether or not you think this is a suitable punishment. But you should better get started because Rosie will be picked up in a couple of hours and you won't be able to see her off at the airport unless the bait shop is clean." "But dad! I was just trying to help! Why do you have to be so hard on me?" By now Major Mason started to sound very annoyed. "Listen young lady. It's either two months cleaning the bait shop or two months being grounded. Take a pick." Carter was about to protest but then she heard the words 'young lady' and caught the strict and annoyed look on the dad's face. "Alright, alright, I'll take the cleaning" she yelled and stormed out of the kitchen towards the bait shop.

Rosie, who retreated into the background during the lecture, sensing that this was something solely between Carter and her dad and not the three of them, stepped forward and looked at Major Mason. "Don't worry. She will calm down eventually." He tried to assure her. Well technically he was assuring himself but Rosie was polite enough not to point that out. Or the possibility that Carter might be able to hold quite the grudge against him for punishing her for something she did with good intentions.

Instead Rosie went outside, saying goodbye to the lake and her life in Louisiana. In just a couple of hours the people from the PPP would bring her back to Costa Luna. Though she was looking forward to seeing her mum again, she was already missing Carter, Ed and her whole life as a normal, American teenager.

After giving it sometime, so that Carter could cool off, Rosie went into the bait shop where she found her best friend scrubbing away on some working plate. "Carter?" Rosie came closer, somewhat hesitantly like she was scared that Carter would blow up on her like she had done several times before. But things were different now. The girls became close friends who trusted each other with their lives, literally, so instead to snapping at Rosie Carter asked "What?" in a tone that even though she didn't snap still held a lot of anger and frustration in it. But Rosie knew Carter well enough to figure out that the anger in her voice was not directed at her. "May I assist you?" Carter looked at Rosie for the first time since breakfast with the surprise evident on her face. "Wha… You want to help _clean_ the shop? Well… alright!" Rosie caught the rag Carter threw at her, feeling relieved that Carter definitely did not hate her. Otherwise Rosie was pretty sure Carter would have thrown her out faster than humanly possible. After Carter showed her somewhat helpless friend what to do the two worked in silence for a while. Finally Rosie couldn't take the silence any longer and asked the question that was still nagging at her. "Are you mad at me?" The tomboy whipped around at this staring at the princess. "No! Why would you even think that?" "Well, for one you are not really talking to me so I thought you were giving me the cold shoulder and secondly because by trying to stop me from handing myself over to General Kane you put yourself into danger and got into a lot trouble for that." "Rosie", Carter hugged her friend. "I could never be mad at you! I couldn't let you run away or go back to Costa Luna. And when I planned the whole thing I knew my dad would find out about this, since that was kind of the plan, and that it wouldn't be all that great getting into trouble for this. But in the end yesterday night was worth everything because it meant I was able to save you! And just so you know I didn't mean to give you the silent treatment. It's just that I was thinking about a lot of stuff." Sometime during Carter's speech Rosie let go of Carter to look at her. "What were you thinking about?" "Just stuff. You know, with you going back to Costa Luna and being crowned queen I'm just scared that we will never see each other again." The Tomboy mumbled the last bit. "Oh Carter, you know that will never happen. We will both visit each other. I mean we talked about this last night. I'm inviting you and Ed to my coronation so you will be flying to Costa Luna in less than a month!"

Carter huffed "That's if my dad lets me go." "Of course he will let you go, he already agreed to it and he can't just break a promise he gave to the soon to be queen of Costa Luna." Carter smiled at her friend. Even though Rosie had become better at it, sometimes you could still tell that she was a princess. The two girls hugged each other once more before they resumed cleaning the bait shop.

A while later the tomboy started to quietly chuckle causing Rosie to look at her strangely. They hadn't talked all that much to each other and Carter didn't seem to be all that happy last time Rosie talked with her. "What is going on?" "Nothing much" Carter replied. "I just think it is kind of ironic that my dad decided to punish me by making me clean the shop." "Why? I thought you hate cleaning it, considering in what kind of mood this put you in." "Oh no, I do hate cleaning the shop and I still am super peeved at my dad. But the thing is that no matter what I do, I always end up with this kind of punishment. Like, do you remember when you first got here and you said you wanted to help and I made you do 'inventory'?" Rosie shivered at the memory. "Please don't remind me of that. Even now just thinking about it makes my skin crawl as if there are still worms on it." Carter got a guilty look on her face. "Yeah, I'm sorry about that, I really am Rosie. But anyways, my dad made me clean up the mess and then he threatened me to make me clean the whole shop for a month if I don't start being friendly and helping you. So let's see where that got me. I did everything that he asked me to do and now he is making me clean for two month. That guy really needs to make up his mind!"  
>The two girls looked at each other and suddenly burst out laughing. It was the comic relief desperately needed by the two. The separation, after spending pretty much every single second together for quite a while and becoming the closest friends either had ever had, was weighing on them more than either wanted to admit. "I'm going to miss you!" Rosie said, the first sign of tears in her eyes. "Me too" was all that Carter could get out before pulling Rosie into the tightest hug possible. No matter what, then and there the princess and the bait girl made the decision to never let go of the memories they had made and most importantly to never lose their friendship.<p> 


End file.
